Infectious disease outbreaks within healthcare facilities can exacerbate patient illness and, in some cases, can be fatal. Contaminated surfaces and medical devices can act as a reservoir for transmission of pathogens and have been linked to the rising incidence of healthcare-acquired infections. Antimicrobial surfaces can reduce microbial contamination and transmission and have emerged as a crucial component in healthcare infection control in recent years. The aim of this study was to manufacture antimicrobial polymer surfaces containing the photosensitiser, toluidine blue O (TBO), using hot-melt extrusion (HME). Several concentrations of TBO were combined with a range of medically relevant polymers via HME. TBO-polymer extrudates displayed no significant differences in thermal properties and surface wettability relative to non-loaded polymers. Minimal leaching of TBO from the surface was confirmed through in vitro release studies. Antibacterial activity was observed to vary according to the polymer and concentration of incorporated TBO, with PEBAX® polymers modified with 0.1% w/w TBO demonstrating promising reductions of >99.9% in viable bacterial adherence of a range of common nosocomial pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Acinetobacter baumannii and Escherichia coli. This study demonstrates the use of HME as a facile alternative method to common encapsulation strategies for the production of light-activated antimicrobial polymer surfaces. This method can be easily translated to large-scale manufacture and, in addition, the polymers constitute promising antimicrobial base materials for the rapidly growing additive manufacturing industries.

医疗机构内的传染病暴发可能加剧患者的病情，在某些情况下可能是致命的。受污染的表面和医疗设备可以充当病原体传播的储存库，并且与医疗保健获得性感染的发生率上升有关。抗菌表面可以减少微生物的污染和传播，并且近年来已成为医疗保健感染控制中的重要组成部分。这项研究的目的是使用热熔挤出（HME）制造包含光敏剂甲苯胺蓝O（TBO）的抗菌聚合物表面。通过以下方式将几种浓度的TBO与一系列医学上相关的聚合物结合HME。相对于未加载的聚合物，TBO-聚合物挤出物在热性能和表面润湿性方面没有显示出显着差异。通过体外释放研究证实了TBO从表面的最小浸出。观察到的抗菌活性会根据聚合物和所掺入的TBO的浓度而变化，用0.1％w / w TBO改性的PEBAX®聚合物表明，包括金黄色葡萄球菌在内的一系列常见医院病原体的活细菌附着力有望降低> 99.9％。，表皮葡萄球菌，鲍曼不动杆菌和大肠杆菌。这项研究表明，使用HME作为常见封装策略的一种简便替代方法，可以生产光活化的抗菌聚合物表面。该方法可轻松转化为大规模生产，此外，对于快速发展的增材制造行业，聚合物构成了很有前途的抗菌基础材料。